Arizona Air National Guard F-16 fighters will be flying over downtown Phoenix Thursday as they practice intercepting hostile aircraft intent on a terrorist attack.

The military will conduct air interceptions of mock hostile aircraft over Phoenix this week.

Horrible, the loss of three innocent lives in the Boston bombing! Then what word could one use to express the fact that between 158,000 and 202,000 civilians have died as a result of the ongoing conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan? It is understandable that the attack in Boston is a national tragedy for the United States. Our sympathies and prayers go out to the victims. But why is it that the loss of innocent lives in the Middle East has been hardly worthy of a second thought, if any, on our part?

Once again it happens with sickening suddenness — a jolting shock that alters and cruelly mocks our assumption of “normalcy.”

BOSTON — The bombs that ripped through the Boston Marathon crowd were fashioned out of ordinary kitchen pressure cookers, packed with nails and other fiendishly lethal shrapnel, and hidden in duffel bags left on the ground, people close to the investigation said Tuesday.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer says she's horrified and heartbroken by the bombings at the Boston Marathon that left at least two people dead and dozens badly injured.

Ten years on, what do we have as a result of our involvement in Iraq?

March 19 this past week marked the 10th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq originally named Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) later changed to Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). Just to note some of the “Shock and Awe” for our $3 trillion to $5 trillion dollar investment: 4,489 dead U.S. soldiers, 32,220 U.S. wounded. This does not include dead or wounded U.S. civilians or private contractors nor the 300,000 plus brain injury and PTSD cases.

Gilbert police responded to a neighborhood near Guadalupe and Lindsay roads after a 5-year-old fired a handgun in the front yard Saturday morning, said Sgt. Jesse Sanger, Gilbert PD spokesman.

The rampage of violence against helpless citizens in Mexico should be a lesson to all in the U.S. who hunger for restricting, then registering, then ultimately collecting our firearms.

The state House voted Thursday to slam the door on gun buyback programs -- even when the owners specifically ask that their weapons be destroyed.

Older Arizonans may soon be able to join the state militia -- to the extent it really exists.

Of the seventeen pardons recently granted by President Obama for various crimes, one was to a person convicted of illegal possession of an unregistered firearm. So much for gun laws.

A state lawmaker wants to remove the age limit of 45 for serving in the state militia, allowing older Arizonans to volunteer for the force designed to be mustered in emergencies but never used in modern memory.

With regard to Secretary Leon Panetta’s fear that reduced defense spending will “hollow out our military,” one must ask why there are currently over 196,000 American military troops stationed in 150-plus foreign countries. Does the money spent to deploy troops in this manner really help secure the shores of the United States of America?

It appears that President Obama, Leon Pinetta (Def.Sec) and Gen. Dempsey (JCS) are excited over instituting a Combat Infantry Roll for our Women in the military. I certainly hope these men did not make their their decision on “Band Wagon Appeal” only?

Notice that General Stanley McChrystal does not support private use of assault weapons. And Stan is the authority on counter terrorism. I was on active duty for seven years, was Unit Property Book officer for 5 years in three different units during which time I held all of my units’ weapons locked up safe and secure in my unit arms rooms. So perhaps our Constitution does permit Congress to require that all civilians who would chose to own military style weapons to secure them in a “well regulated” militia’s arms room! Five weapon safes cost less than $300. If that’s good for the active duty geese, it ought to be good for the ganders, too.

I am a former Army Officer and combat veteran. I was commissioned from the University of Arizona’s Army ROTC Program. As a Cadet and as a young Lieutenant I believed that women should not serve in combat units for all of the same reasons we are used to hearing; physical ability, unit cohesion, rape, capture, etc. However, as most of us know, actual experience vs theory often changes one’s opinion. Once in combat my opinion changed as I witnessed all of my seemingly legitimate reasons fall to pieces one by one; they just never materialized. I expected to see combat units fall apart once a woman was attached, I expected to see women fail physically on the combat field and get men killed, I expected to see women raped when captured, I expected to see men flee a post or duty because a woman was in danger ... none of it happened, none of it. Experience trumps theory every time, and when it does intelligent humans must begin to change their mind.

Oskar Knoblauch, the author of “A Boy’s Story — A Man’s Memory Surviving the Holocaust 1933-1945,” will recount his story of loss and survival at the Red Mountain Library on Saturday, Jan. 26.

Despite some contemporary opinion, there is no historical evidence, except for a bit of Thomas Jefferson’s political writings, that the Second Amendment to the Constitution was designed to ensure that Americans could, if necessary, rise to remove a tyrannical government.

My reaction to Bill Richardson’s guest commentary of Dec. 28, “Young warriors a truly special breed,” is dismay. Although I respect his service as master police officer, and appreciate most of his contributions to the Tribune, I must comment that some of the opinions in this article are historically naive, on one hand, and disingenuous on the other.

Let’s face it, the nation’s founders didn’t create the Second Amendment to allow people to kill defenseless, unarmed school children.

An exhibit on display for a limited time at the Arizona Jewish Historical Society’s Cutler Plotkin Jewish Heritage Center is bringing visitors face-to-face with lifelike, three-dimensional renderings of real-life Holocaust survivors.

In reply to John K. Walker’s letter concerning the Second Amendment.